Book review: Journey beneath the skin of India

Trevor Fishlock finds Mark Tully as lucid and entertaining as ever in his new book India in Slow Motion

12:00AM GMT 16 Nov 2002

It must have been hard at times for Mark Tully to control his anger. His journey beneath the Indian skin led him frequently to the thick dark seam of corruption that hobbles progress and makes life miserable for millions.

Businessmen complain that in most of Asia you pay your bribe and get a result, but in India all you get is another 20 grasping hands and no payoff: India can't even do corruption properly.

Tully's hard-hitting critique is all the more powerful because he starts from a position of affection and respect for a land he has reported brilliantly for more than 35 years.

Thoughtful and judicious, he and his partner Gillian Wright patiently unravel the stories behind the stories as they examine Hindu extremism, child labour, Kashmir, political bribery, the differing strands of Islam and much else. Indian politicians commonly complain to journalists that "you are not giving correct picture", but Tully draws out the detail of controversial and complex matters and never over-simplifies.

Anyone contemplating the sheer diversity and apparent anarchy of India wonders how it all works; and Tully sees it somehow staggering along in spite of the obstruction and looting by politicians and bureaucrats known colloquially as netas and babus, the neta-babu raj. He cites the view of a top civil servant that the country is a kleptocracy and the prime minister's admission that "corruption is a low-risk, high-reward activity". Of every hundred rupees allocated to rural development, 85 or 90 go into neta-babu pockets.

To defend the ramshackle system that enriches them the modern rulers of India retain the old colonial bureaucracy, the stultifying labyrinths of red tape and rules the British introduced to quash the Indian freedom movement. The police remain a colonial force, badly in need of reform.

When a television company filmed senior political figures taking wads of cash the government hit back in typically draconian and arrogant fashion, hounding out of business two innocent men who had invested in the TV firm. One was jailed under a law already repealed as too harsh.

Of course, there are good men and women in the civil service and police, but one top bureaucrat said: "Honest officers are victimised by the political executive with the shameless assistance of the Judases and Brutuses."

Mark Tully says that "so often in India the government is the problem not the solution" and sees no sign that the neta-babu raj wants to reform. It is clear to everyone that, while the central national problem of India is its wretched governance, politicians have put much energy into stirring up Hindu extremism, sectarian and caste conflicts, possibly as a way of distracting the electorate. For years the Hindu nationalist party, BJP, made the destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya the core of its campaigning.

Although the neta-babus have shackled the Indian elephant, it nevertheless makes progress. There are parasites but also decent people aching for reform. Tully thinks the grip of the neta-babus will weaken. The Supreme Court has its eye on them, there is a free press, an acceptance of devolution and a willingness among voters to chuck out greedy politicians. Tully concludes his absorbing human stories with hope.